TOPIC:

Good luck to 2 more debutants.
Jack Steel and Jack Avery.

Lathlain lad wrote:

Busher and Langlands out now..Steel and Avery replacements...In 40 yrs of following football I have never seen a club experience this sort of injury toll..What doesn't kill you makes you stronger but I now worry about a blowout tomorrow night, Busher has been immense since his return. 

FMD, someone slap me and wake me up. This is a nightmare. Having said that I do like the ins, got experience back and Avery and Steel are two good ins. Jack Steel will provide good backup support for Eyresy and likes to drift forward and take marks and kick goals. Avery has been killing it in the colts and good to see Connor Sing hold his spot. It will free up Taylor and maybe Nicho to drift forward. The key for me is can the midfield stand up? A big ask.

Massive task with almost half of the bet 22 out injured. However if the last two weeks have shown us anything it's that if you rock up with the right attitude then anything can happen.

On another note did anyone else see that the time for the East Fremantle game has been changed to 3:10pm? Any ideas as to why?

Just a theory, but....I wonder if the ground at Lathlain has anything to do with all these injuries.
There are some similarities with all the WCE injuries this season.
Both clubs train on it as well as play on it.

It would be a minor miracle to win this one. My hope is that we can keep the margin to something reasonable. We already have the worst percentage of every team except EP and WCE. 

Interesting what this says about Marshall Jones. On the one hand, I think if we are a team with finals aspirations, Jones should be no more than a reserves player. On the other hand, when you have 10 of your best players out with injury, you would expect someone with 50 games experience to be picked over a modestly credentialed debutant like Steel. I wish Steel all the best, but Jones' numbers in the twos have been a good deal better, and he has played some good games at league level, so I would have gone with experience. I can only assume Jones is firmly on the outer. Maybe he'll wind up as a WCE top up player next year. I would also have kept Gray ahead of Hayward. 

Some good news in that Yeo is set to play a full game in the reserves and is said to be on track for a return after the bye, hopefully along with 4-5 other players. 

Respect to Perth for the way they have dealt with their injury situation, I thought Subi's injury list last year was bad with 8 first picks out, sending us out of finals for the first time since 2012, but your situation is astonishing, as is the way the players have responded. yes everyone expects Subi to win, but that was the case when you played the reigning premiers a couple of weeks ago. Expecting a good hard close contest. Fine weather but will be a wet dewy surface being a cold night game.

Smokey, I would think it's unlikely that the Lathlain surface has caused these injuries. It's just sheer bad luck, and plenty of it. McInnes is a pec, which he got in a tackle. Masten was a corky, followed by illness. Busher has a history of hip issues. Langalnds was injured at Joondalup, Sinclair (I think) at EF and Grey at Claremont. But obviously I don't know why we are having such a wretched run, hopefully, it's just an unusually bad run which will turn around after the bye.

Ted Nugent wrote:

Smokey, I would think it's unlikely that the Lathlain surface has caused these injuries. It's just sheer bad luck, and plenty of it. McInnes is a pec, which he got in a tackle. Masten was a corky, followed by illness. Busher has a history of hip issues. Langalnds was injured at Joondalup, Sinclair (I think) at EF and Grey at Claremont. But obviously I don't know why we are having such a wretched run, hopefully, it's just an unusually bad run which will turn around after the bye.
I take your point Ted but amongst them is there not the odd Hammy (Smith, Langlands), Ankle (Gibba, Sinclair), knee (Grey, DBW, Smith) ?

 

Looks like McPartland is out and Gray comes back in

How bloody disappointing was that, be inventive if you can find a positive out of that debacle!